Stories

The post about the movie The Apartment made a reference to characters being "doomed" or "damned."  This is in reference to a theory that each generation has a particular type of story, and that good/popular/profitable stories fit well with their target generation.

(There will be a longer post on this at some point, but for the moment the reference should be explained - at least a little.)

Captain America: The First Avenger, as noted, is a Hero story, with the good guys winning through teamwork and sacrifice. Reactive stories - like Chef but also like the earlier Favreau, Smith, and Tarantino films - are about redemption: Reactives start out Bad, and spend their energies becoming better people. Prophets are able to beat the bad guys, just as Heroes do, but they can do it on their own, through sheer moral superiority.

Artist stories, though, seem to be about The Doomed and the Damned. Either there are people who will never be able to move past their sins, or those who will be unable to survive because of the world they live in - presumably populated with the first type of people. Rizzo Ratso and Joe Buck are Doomed. Michael Corleone is Damned, everyone around him Doomed.  Bonnie & Clyde are both Doomed and Damned.

In the Hero-written-and-directed Apartment, on the other hand, C.C. Baxter and Fran Kubelik appear as if they will survive - they aren't Doomed. Actually, it appears that they will win, even if it requires sacrificing Baxter's executive washroom key, his twenty-seventh floor office, and his job.